Mountain View Christian School teacher full of surprises

It is a common misconception that the "older generation" doesn't know a thing about modern technology. That they can have actual lives may be even more unbelievable.

But Pamela Knapp, a teacher at Mountain View Christian School, is living proof that how active you are in your later years all depends on what you do with your life.

Born in Oklahoma, she moved on to live in Texas, New Mexico, and finally, Nevada.

One of her earliest jobs was as a ballet dancer, which she did for 13 years. She also worked for the Review-Journal as a newspaper carrier, and at the Stardust as a night auditor.

Before she became a full-time teacher, she was a sub who could be called in to work in any grade, teaching kindergartners to high school seniors. Her forte was always English, which she later went on to teach full time, as well as Bible and French.

She also has been a devoted wife -- married to her husband, Tom, 40 years in May -- and mother to three daughters: Rachel, Sara and Meredith.

Knapp hasn't been afraid to try new things or travel to different places.

Her husband had a motorcycle, and Knapp wanted to learn how to ride it. But, "my feet were too short and my hands were too small to shift the gears," she says of her first time on it. "My husband took me out one day and I hit the gas instead of the brake and we went up on the sidewalk and all over the road."

She ultimately got better at it, and they took some trips, including one to St. George, Utah, and one to Death Valley in California.

Her longest trip, though not on a motorcycle, was for three weeks to see her sister in New Jersey. They went to Connecticut, the Empire State Building in New York, and the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

Her most memorable moment from one of her trips, a vacation to Italy, was "standing in the rain at the Vatican Square, listening to the pope sing."

While there, she also stayed at a hotel that reminded her of the "Amityville Horror" house. "It was the scariest place in the world, but the best place I've ever stayed," she says, adding that the rooms are state-of-the-art.

On her trips, she could be seen wearing an iPod packed with a variety of music, including country-western, rock 'n' roll and heavy metal. She may listen to rock, but, "my first choice is Mozart," she says. "Mozart all day if I want. He is my favorite."

If you've ever seen Knapp, you wouldn't expect her to be one for adventure.

"Something people wouldn't expect of me ... ?" she searches. "That I've said a swear word?" She laughs to herself. "I actually used to have a pretty bad mouth," she says. "I was 'tough.' I smoked ... years and years ago when I was really young."

She once even won a tarantula-naming contest.

"There was a famous local talk show radio announcer named Watson Jelts," she says. "He was having a friendly talk war with another announcer in Reno."

They would do crazy things to each other, and one time the guy in Reno sent Watson a tarantula in the mail. Watson trapped it and started a contest to name it. "So, I sat down and made up a name," she says.

She won, with the name of Ork (which stood for Orrible Rotten Kreep), and received the prize of a dinner with Watson Jelts, along with the tarantula.

"They told me to come pick it up in a few days," she says. "Well, I never did."

She laughs again at the memory.